-I know… I don’t mind… I think, at least.

-You sure that it’s you who doesn’t mind? - I chuckled. - I swear I had the same thought before…

-I… well…

-What thought? What don’t you mind?! Tell me! If that concerns him, that also is my business!

-Oh, I know. I already told you. You’re turning into a crystal.

-Yeah, I know! And?

-And we can’t stop it. Who do you think was the crystal originally?

-Well, you…?

-No. It was ILMA.

-What does that mean?!

-It means that sooner or later, all of us are going to be one person.

-What?!

The disbelief and confusion on her face was indescribable.

-I am… let’s say, the first generation - I started. - I started realizing that when I detached from her… I now can feel myself changing. And I don’t mean just physically. My mind is different… I think and I do things I would've never thought I would. And those are consistent with what I remember ILMA’s directives being. I am slowly turning into her.

-Or… well, maybe not exactly - I pointed out, seeing as both of them were completely dumbfounded. - Part of me… wants to say that to assimilate one person into another and not expect any changes is stupid. But which part is telling me that? Is it me? The hopeful human? Or the logical one? The robot, artificial creation, thinking in math and probabilities?

-Does… does that mean… Axelrod is the same…?

-I assume so. But judging by how he’s still somewhat… himself… I assume that his process of assimilation has been… slowed for some reason.

-And how do you know that? If that’s… ILMA telling you that… Doesn’t that mean that your point of view is flawed?

-Not really… Her, me, Iloa, every single one of us had the same experiences with him… since her memory is Iloa’s memory, and mine in some regard. Besides, it’s not like she’s controlling me.

-Can… we stop it somehow?

-You still want to stop it? - I asked For. - Good. That means you are the least affected out of us all.

-Least affected…?

-Remember what I said? And what Kon said?

-”I don’t mind being turned”...

-Precisely. And since you’re not thinking that it’s okay, instead thinking of stopping it, means you still have most of your own free will.

-And about stopping… I am not sure that is possible. But on the other hand, it might not be necessary.

She was dumbfounded.

-You really are being controlled… To give up your own free will like that.

-That’s not what I meant. But you probably are right. What I meant to say is that you don’t need to fight the actual assimilation, instead you can try controlling it.

-Controlling? How does that help?

-I straight up cannot see it being possible to fight it out right, as to deny it and stop completely. But, that cannot be said about the ability to… point it towards the right direction.

-What…?

-Let’s look at Axelrod. You said he is very old. Meaning he had to be connected to the crystal for at least as long as you are aware of him, if him being Mike is not enough of a giveaway. And yet, he was not turned completely to stone, while I, spending similar amounts of time, am like this. Why?

-Well… you said that when you arrived, you were unconscious… right? And in the middle of a torn leyline. Wasn’t that the fault of the abundance of mana surrounding you at the time?

-But why would just mana be the problem? After all, you live in a similar place. Sure, it was a bit more contained, and you haven’t been around it for as long as me, but it was still a rather large chunk of time. Wouldn’t that mean that you’d be affected somehow as well?

-I mean… I didn’t have the crystal for that long, so…

-Oh, you did. You forget what Axelrod… or rather your previous leader gave you? It was obviously the same thing. By now it would’ve been a lot worse, and yet here you are, barely even noticing the change.

-So what? What does that mean?

-It’s simple. As with all magic similar to this, the will of the user is the key.

-Will?

-Blood magic, slave magic, life magic, contracts, call it whatever you want. All they are based on is just a person's will. Be it binding it to you or something else. And of course, if one were to resist, realizing what was happening, the caster would indubitably have a hard time enforcing his will, spending more mana.

-So what? Axelrod has that in abundance.

-Sure. That’s why you… we don’t have to resist. We have to respond in kind. Take control over the magic ourselves and instead force our will onto him.

She went silent, contemplating what she just heard.

-You want me to enforce my own will onto HIM? How in the hell…

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-I know, you don’t want to make direct enemies with him, but I fear that it’s the only way. That is if you don’t want to be a part of…

-No, no, that’s not what I meant - she quickly denied. - I am not stupid. I am aware that the confrontation with him is inevitable. It’s just… For fuck’s sake, it’s Axelrod! You think I have enough in me to even try and inconvenience him, and not only that, to force myself onto HIS will?

-Ah. Well, if you put it like that…

-On top of that he has an immense mana capacity, if he’s that old and smart, his mind has to be like a stone wall! Even if I knew what I was doing, that would be an impossible task!

-And who said you have to force your mind onto his? - I asked.

-What do you mean?

-It’s not Axelrod that you need to be struggling against.

Kon, so far only listening intently, finally asked a question.

-Not him…? Then who…? Who’s trying to… merge with us?

-That is a complicated question. It's definitely not Axelrod. If that was him, we’d already be of one mind. Just like a certain golden warrior.

-Fucking… So that's his job?

-I think so. I attribute it to Goldies lack of overall mana. And common sense. An ideal candidate to… “convert”, so to speak. But no, he’s not trying to control us. At least that’s what I believe. I honestly think that he is in the same boat as we are, and he’s trying to hold at bay… the other one.

-Other one?

-Short answer: ILMA. But I feel that’s not all there is to it.

-Wasn’t she supposed to copy herself…? Or something?

-Yeah. And what happens if you try to copy something on top of another?

-It gets erased… - she realized what I meant.

-Precisely. But we now have to control what gets overwritten by what.

-Fuck…

-Yeah. Seems like we only have one option.

-For now at least - I agreed. - As you are aware, the two of us already had… some failures in that regard. So you better keep your head clear.

-Even if I know that now, what does that help me?! - she asked, angrily. - What, am I supposed to think about myself or something? Write a diary?!

-Well, it wouldn’t hurt, but no. I am sad to tell you, I am not sure what. And even if I knew, as I no longer have the will to resist, I doubt I would've told you.

-It’s that bad…?

-It’s not good… the more time I spend… separated from her, the more I feel like I am not myself. You think on that.

-What about you, Kon?

-Well… while I do have similar feelings as just was said… I still feel like I am myself… - he replied after a moment of thought.

-Yet still you don’t feel like resisting.

-Right…

-That’s a problem.

-Somewhat.

Our internal dialogue was long enough for the guy to finally finish with the broken slab of rock. Or, at least the rock that used to be broken.

During that, he managed to complete the puzzle that the shattered tablet was, and even managed to… glue it together, more or less. None of us was paying much attention, but he used the weird magnifying glass to actually join the pieces together.

The piece of wood that was inside it instead of glass was burning brightly, and from it a stream of mana was pouring onto the rock. It sort of looked like he was trying to burn something using a lens and sunlight, but without using either of them.

The finished effect was that the slab was in one piece, he didn’t even get rid of the cracks, like a cracked windshield, barely holding together, just waiting to shatter completely into a hail of sharp pieces.

That was apparently enough for him, because after he was done with that, he popped the “wooden lens” out of the magnifying glass, and put both pieces in his small sack.

He then turned his attention to the ball he had with him.

As soon as he pulled it out, he poured a little bit of magic into it and it suddenly sprung to life.

The whole surface of the ball started glowing with different symbols… no, it was just letters, regular alphabet. At first it looked just like gibberish, but soon he started poking at it, changing letters to form an actual sentence… the spell. He was copying what was written on the tablet.

And with what precision, might I add.

While he was not able to fill in the gaps, as in where the cracks in the stone were, or just where the pieces were simply missing, he was just putting the same letter.

I guess there was no option on the ball for “blank”.

He did not manage to copy the whole thing of course, only about half of the first sentence, if not less, when he stopped suddenly and instead focused on top of the ball.

That was the only spot where there was a blank space on the orb, and, apparently, a button.

He pressed it in once and the ball started… vibrating. The letters flashed a few times and started rearranging themselves… or no, it looked like everything shifted.

Inside of the ball there had to be some kind of mechanism, because along with the vibration, the orb opened, and the sides started moving. It sort of looked like it was opening and closing on itself, until after about a few seconds, it put itself together again and back into a ball. With different letters this time.

He was apparently not happy with that development and repeated the process a few times, until finally he sighed and started looking for something inside his bag.

It seemed like he needed some kind of manual, because he pulled out a small booklet from his bag.

And I mean it. It looked just like a manual.

Wait a second… it WAS a manual.

I had to blink a few times to check if I was not dreaming, because the piece of paper in his hands was definitely not just written by hand: it was printed!

Like that was not enough of a surprise, he also pulled out a pair of glasses. Quite nice and, while definitely a bit beaten up, that was not something I would’ve thought to see here.

Hell, last time when For noticed a fucking wedding ring, she deemed it too complicated to be a creation of this word. And those glasses? If a ring was a surprise, this one should amaze her even more.

And I was right.

As I suddenly went wide-eyed on sight of the paper and glasses, she followed my look and promptly her jaw dropped.

I don’t think I needed my ability to tell that she was stunned.

Kon, on the other hand, was not so amazed. He was more interested in the glowing orb that he was holding in his hand.

Not noticing our looks, the guy lifted his veil a bit and put the glasses on, and started mumbling something to himself.

Just when I thought he finished with the surprises, he once more started rummaging around his bag, and this time pulled a pen.

A pen. A plastic pen.

If before I had some worries about the guy, now they got magnified considerably.

Where the hell did he get all that stuff?

If his “staff” was suspicious, the rest of his arsenal was proving to me that he somehow had access to stuff from my world. But how?

As far as I was aware, this place’s tech was not even close to making precise metal needed to make the rim for the glasses like that, especially when combined with the plastic pieces clearly needed to create even a shitty pen.

First things first though: I quickly focused, trying to find any signs of familiar markings on his stuff.

Everything that we had in the MIRE had been marked. You know, marketing and all that, so it was easy to tell if something was indeed taken from our building.

But nope, none of those were sporting a single logo, brand, or anything similar to that, that I would recognize.

Sure, the manual had some strange name on it, but I’ve never heard of that name. And considering the look on their faces, neither did any of my companions.